Yesterday was November 11th, which is Veteran’s day/Armistace Day in many countries. As I’ve previously blogged about, here in Germany — in a tradition that predates WWI — it was the “11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month” that signals the start of the Carnival season, at least in the city of Köln, as well as a few other places in Germany.

But it was also St. Martin’s Day. I blogged about St. Martin years ago on my old blog, because we wound up in Poznań, Poland close to St. Martin’s day that year, and stumbled onto their delicious pastry tradition for that day.

Here in Tübingen, there’s no pastry tradition for this date to speak of, although there may be one in parts of Germany that are further north. However, every year on St. Martin’s Day in Tübingen there is a street market throughout the center of town. The market is similar to the one that was held every Saturday in Bolzano, where the stalls mainly sell gloves, scarves, shirts, coats, pajamas, hats and a variety of household utensils, brushes and pots and pans.  The market actually continued today, so I took a couple of photos with my cell phone to give you a view of it, which you’ll find in the gallery at the end of this post.

Now when I was recently looking at the Wikipedia article that lists traditions for St. Martin’s Day around the world, I noticed that it claimed that there is also a tradition in Germany for school children to hold a parade where they carry lanterns in honor of St. Martin.  The Wikipedia article does NOT mention the St. Martin’s market, just the parade, as being the Germany tradition.  However, the only thing we’d seen in past years on St. Martin’s Day in Tübingen on St. Martin’s day was that market. So I found myself wondering where in Germany kids parade with lanterns on St. Market’s day.

Until last night, that is, when I wondered no longer.

As I was sitting writing yesterday’s blog post, Chris and I heard a clamor of kids passing by our window.  It was after dark, and when we looked out, sure enough there was a small sea of lanterns floating by, presumable being carried by school children.  By the time I got my camera, most of them were already past, but you can get the idea of what the end of the parade looked like from the last couple of photos in the gallery below.

We didn’t try to follow them, so I don’t know if there was (as the Wikipedia entry claims) a man on horseback, and/or if they stopped somewhere to have pretzels.  But at least now I’ve seen something that is more like the traditional sign of St. Martin’s Day in Germany.

Of course, I’m not sure that’s a good thing. You see, according to tradition, that means that winter is now officially here.